The “girl in red” plays an imporant role in the film Schindler’s List: she represents turning points in Schindler’s way of thinking. She appears at least twice in the film. First, Schindler notices her while on horseback during the ghetto massacre sequence. Second, he sees her body in a cart as Goeth is exhuming and burning bodies.
My question concerns a possible third appearance by the girl in red, though she is in black and white this time. Very early in the film, right after Schindler schmoozes the Nazi officers, we see many Jews registering for placement in the ghetto. Early in this scene, a young girl passes by for a few seconds. She is wearing a coat and scarf around her head. She is pulling a suitace behind her.
I was of the understanding that the girl was a plot element that served as an abstract representation (a microcosm?) of the holocaust entire, thus making an effort to concentrate its tragic dynamic into a single ‘concept-emotion’ that was easier to digest by the human mind. On a grand scale, the holocaust was far too abstract for someone like Oscar Schindler to grasp fully. Sometimes to appreciate the horror of something massive, you have to minimize it and see it at its most fundamental level. It’s no coincidence that the color of her coat is red.
Not to compare Schindler’s List with Titanic, but James Cameron used Jack and Rose to similar effect in his film. Since it is impossible to care about every single passenger on the ill-fated ship on her maiden voyage completely and equally within the scope of a three hour film, he creates two characters to represent the entire passenger manifest (from third to first class) and makes you care about their fates, thereby caring and understanding the fates of the passenger collective.
Having read Schindler’s Ark, and not seen much of the movie, I believe you are right (well as far as the book goes) I will glance through the relevant chapters and hopefully get back to you.
I always felt the girl in the red coat was just a way to show what Schindler was thinking during the time he was witnessing the massacre. The scene was distant from him and all confusion. Like a Bosch painting of hell. So he can’t take it all in and he zero’s in on one particular girl. She is in red to let us zero in on her.
IIRC, the shots of Schindler and his girlfirend(?) on the horse, then the getto, then closer on Schindler, then the getto, then really tight on Schindler and then the girl shows up and we get closer and closer to her.
Ok, found the first instance (in the book) of the ‘girl in red’. It is the massacre scene. I thought she was mentioned earlier, but that is Genia or “redcap”.
Guess I might have to go watch the movie.
However, Spielberg was unaware of her existence when he included the character in the movie. It was only upon seeing the coincidental portrayal of “herself” in the film that Ms. Logicka decided to write her book.
An interesting website about the movie depiction of the girl in the red coat, that also tells of another girl in a red coat that came up during the real life trial of Adolf Eichmann. (Warning: contains some graphic and possibly disturbing images and descriptive text.)
In the cast list, there is a character listed as Red Genia. Is this the girl in red? If so, the Genia in the book may be the person we’re both taling about. Thanks for checking…
In the book, Genia also dresses in red (hence my confusion) but she is much older and is IIRC taken in by the Dresners. Genia is introduced just before the girl in red.
Spielberg’s purpose was to focus Schindler’s attention, but only indirectly. Schindler is a standin for the audience, and Spielberg’s really intention was to limit the audience’s focus. Spielberg doesn’t have a lot of faith in his audience, so where he needs you “get” something, he’ll spoonfeed it to you.
Right on target. One becomes numb to death and horror when presented with thousands of bodies. By showing us this character at the begining of the film in such a unique way, Spielberg marks her as an individual. And then, when the audience has forgotten about her, he passes her corpse in front of Schindler as very effective way of reminding us that each one of the 8,000+ bodies in front of us was an individual. A person.